Ignorance

In "Blood Oranges," the poem's narrator presents a time in her childhood when, living in Germany, she was unaware of events during the Spanish Civil War that led to the death of Federico García Lorca, a great poet. It describes how she sat eating an orange that had been imported from Spain, reading mediocre German poetry. She seems to regret having been ignorant. The phrase "ignorant" has come to have a negative meaning because it has been used as an insult in recent decades, but the true, basic meaning is that one is unaware. Twice, the speaker points out her childhood ignorance while using strong, defensive language. In line 3 she asks, rhetorically, "what did I know about the war in Spain?" Readers can tell from the way the question is put that she knew nothing about the war, but phrasing it this way implies that the...